Letters

I found your Web page and was deeply moved. Do you know the story, surely apocryphal, about Mozart discovering the music of J.S. Bach? According to the story Mozart was already an established composer by the time of this discovery (which was quite possible, given Bach’s obscurity as a composer in those days), and after Mozart listened in a church to an organist playing the first Bach he’d every heard, he allegedly said: “At last I am not alone.” That’s how I felt when 1 discovered what you are doing.

J.S. California

Recently I read two books about Hitler’s program of euthanasia against the mentally and physically handicapped. One book even showed pictures of a “shower room” where gas supposedly came out instead of water. Could this be one origin of the “gas chamber” stories? As a handicapped person myself, I would be very interested in seeing something about this in a future SR.

M.D. New Jersey

We’d like to take a look at the book with the picture you mention. Please send along the references.

On 6 February I listened to a short-wave broadcast by “Radio Vatican” concerning the Holocaust, the Jews, the Christian Church, and the Pope. It was a review of how the Church in general, and the Vatican in particular, dealt with the Nazis’ anti-Jewish policies. It appeared to be a response to Goldhagen’s work. It might be worth getting a cassette recording of this broadcast and making it available to others.

N.S. MA

Maybe it would be. Did anyone record it?

Re David Cole’s recantation: it says nothing specific about his intellectual reasons for repudiating revisionism. You might ask David to reply to his 46 Unanswered Questions About the WWII ‘Gas Chambers,’ giving his intellectual reasons for recanting the implications of each of those questions. Such a paper would be very educational.

Lou Rollins, WA

Checked out your Website and read some chapters from your Confessions and Break My Bones. I detect a style in your writing that reminds me of Raymond Chandler—not just the 1st person idea—but the way you put it all together, and the way you use dialogue. It’s fetchin’—real fetchin’. Do you have a fondness for Chandler yourself?

R.I., OK

Yes, in a sense. I read Chandler 30 and 40 years ago, but now I remember the movies that were made from his books more than the books themselves. Chandler didn't get sidetracked with revisionism so he had time to write a lot of books. Maybe I’ll work it out some day.